It's been just over a week in the 2018 season and I can say this: the Shohei Ohtani hype is 100% legit. After a rather disastrous Spring Training both on the mound and at the plate Ohtani has shown that we put way too much stock in warmup games. We got our first glimpse of "ShoTime" over a week ago when he made his MLB debut in Oakland. Regularly hitting high 90's and mixing in a nasty sinker, Ohtani picked up his first win while hurling 6 solid innings. The two-way sensation from Japan lived up to his Ruthian expectations by playing DH and hitting a HR in 3 straight games including his first at-bat in Anaheim. Ohtani in his 2nd game at DH hit an absolute monster shot off 2-time Cy Young winner Cory Kluber with a swing that looked so effortless you would have thought ShoTime is already tired of the Southern California spotlight. Not good with just hitting home runs and winning games on the mound, yesterday Ohtani flirted with perfection. This time making his home pitching debut Ohtani retired the first 19 batters he faced while hitting triple digits on the radar gun. And this was against the A's who just faced him a week ago. Ohtani lost his perfect game in the 7th after giving up a single but still got the win after striking out 12 in 7 innings.
So far one week into his MLB debut Ohtani is 2-0 with a ridiculous 0.46 WHIP on the mound. At the plate he has 3 homers and 7 RBIs in only 18 at-bats with a 1.310 OPS. Yes it's early but those are Babe Ruth numbers and Shohei is doing things that haven't been seen since the Great Bambino was playing a century ago.
As you know the MLB season is a marathon and not a sprint so it will be fun to watch Ohtani make adjustments. Hitters and pitchers will both have scouting reports on him as the season progresses and thus Ohtani will need to make changes when necessary. But right now I can tell you Ohtani reminds me a lot more of instant impacts Hideo Nomo and Ichiro when they imported from Japan than the duds of Hideki Irabu and Kosuke Fukudome.
But so far under the bright lights of Southern California where stars shine so bright it looks like Shohei "ShoTime" Ohtani could be the brightest of them all.
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